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Breaking Point
The door to Myiari's cell is opened rather suddenly, creaking as the old durasteel frame is jerked from its resting spot and pulled away far enough to allow light to flood into the badly lit room. Rainier's appearance is preceded by his footsteps, boots striking the hard floor, and there is another noise, that of something dragging along the floor, for that matter the Imperial agent's walk is rather uneven. All is revealed as one realizes that Rainier is in fact dragging something behind him, stooped over low as he pulls behind him something covered by fabric, by clothing and it is only after a moment that one might realize just who is dragged. Said-person's condition explained amply by the blood staining the clothing as well as the traces of it left on the floor. Slumped against the wall in the corner in what can only be assumed to be sleep, Myiari lets out a soft grunt of discomfort as she squints against the light. She seems just about ready to ignore the Imperial when she catches sight of what he's dragging into the room; the moment she realizes just what - or rather who - it is, her lips press together in a thin line, her face marred with a look of both concern and caution. "Tokoga..." she murmurs. Her eyes flit to Rainier briefly, the faintest hint of a glare in them, though she says nothing, and makes no move to approach. Its obvious from even the most cursory of glances that the Senator has taken quite a beating from his last session with Rainier, and came out of it looking much worse than he had going in. On closer examination, there are several wounds across the Senator's torso and limbs from the harsh interrogation, and most of them are still bleeding into the fabric he's wrapped in even as he's being dragged into the room across the floor by Rainier. "You rebels.", the man says after dumping Tokoga somewhere in the room, near the middle of it, "Pathetic deluded scum that you are.", he adds before walking to one of the walls, settling just beside the still-open doorway. He reaches into his shirt's pockets, the upper garment stained with some of the Senator's blood that spattered back on him. "You can never understand that you're beat, you can never get it through your thick skulls that resistance is futile." A smoke is retrieved although he holds off on lighting it. "You continue your little struggles, you waste resources that could be better spent elsewhere, actually helping people. And you force us to escalate things to where innocent bystanders get hurt. Caamas, Alderaan, Sluis Van, Cochran all of it could have been spared if simply you accept that you're beat. And look at you two fools, you could have simply accepted the truth of your situation, given us what we need, and spared yourself this pain. Pathetic.", at last the smoke is lit. "Funny," Myiari mutters, glaring at the man through a curtain of blonde hair. "If my history's right, you guys were slaughtering innocents for the hell of it long before the Rebellion even took hold. You're the ones who kept building superweapon after superweapon even after the last one was destroyed. If anyone's wasting resources, it's the Empire. All the while, the citizens suffer. They're protected only when the Empire feels like it, and if throwing lives away is convenient, they'll do it. I've never seen a government with so little respect or value for life. Makes me almost glad I left." Normally, Tokoga would have a few things to say in response to Rainier, but the unconscious Mon Calamari is obviously in no condition for a debate. Still limply prone where he was before, he shows no signs of livelihood save for his breathing and continued bleeding into the cloth he was dragged in on. "With the Death Star, we would have halved our entire armed forces, released countless monies back to the civilian treasury to be used improving infrastructure on remote worlds and help the poor. With it, we would have no need of so massive an armada to deal with the little problems rebels like you kick up, we would have had peace, and people would have been able to live in a lawful and orderly society wherein they could prosper after the chaos of the Seperatists' war." A long puff of his smoke follows his mini-speech, a second one too for that matter, the smoke inhaled deep into his lungs, an oddity of this particular type he enjoys, before being let out in a series of small exhalations. Even as Rainier reaches for the cudgel-like baton hanging from his belt, the weapon damp with the blood it drew earlier, the smoke remains stuck between his lips. "So be it.", although the words might be a bit harder to understand now, "What happens is on your head." As soon as Tokoga's unconscious figure is reached, the baton is swinging downwards, indiscretionately aimed at whatever part of the prisoner's body it can get at, and barely has it struck him that it is swinging up and down, the wild movement rinsed and repeated again and again. Myiari says nothing for a long while, simply opting to remain in her corner, though once she sees Rainier striking out at the Mon Calamari, her left eye twitches. Within a few quick strides, she's upon the Imperial, her expression stony as she makes a grab for the club the next time he raises it. "You know what? That's perfectly fine with me," she growls. <'SKILL'> Myiari rolls a 18 for her MELEE COMBAT skill. A Good roll! <'SKILL'> Rainier rolls a 20 for his DODGE skill. A Good roll! Were they closer, perhaps Myiari would have stood a better chance of it, a much better chance maybe, but she was not, and those few strides was enough for the Imperial to get plenty of warning. When the medic lunges, Rainier jerks his arm back first and then his body follows along, hoppiung back a few steps out of the woman's reach. And as he does so, the blaster that he also brought, one can never be too safe, is removed and pointed at Myiari. "Be very careful, how you act in the next few moments is the difference between being in serious pain and being dead." Despite the warning and the blaster pointed at her, Myiari seems to decide to press her luck. Ducking low, she charges forward, attempting to close the distance once again. Once she's within range, she leans back and launches into a half-slide, kicking out at Rainier's blaster hand as she attempts to pass under it, aiming to disarm him and hopefully land the weapon in her own hands. <'ROLL'> Myiari rolls a 11 with 4D. An Average roll! <'SKILL'> Rainier rolls a 9 for his DODGE skill. A Poor roll! Stirring as the commotion unfolds, Tokoga groans incoherently for a few moments, then opens his eyes hazily. "Myiari...?!" The immediate gravity of the situation is lost on the Mon Calamari until he realizes just what's going on around him. Unfortunately for the young medic, he's still really in no condition to do anything to come to her aid. Were Rainier not the one being attacked, he would consider himself vindicated by the medic's attempts to take him down, or is it that she hopes to free himself? But there is no time for a smug sense of triumph as he is the one being attacked. The upside of the whole thing is that he does not lose his weapon, tightening his grip on it, although his hand aches mightily at Myiari's kick, his grip almost loosening. The other upside, to put things in a way that might make it better for him is that his shot still goes off, a loud sound reverberating through the room as the shot bounces from wall to wall before finally burying itsel on the floor. And already boots can be heard coming quickly down the corridor outside. Myiari refuses to let up in her assault despite her failed attempt at disarming Rainier. Planting her hands on the ground, she uses them to pivot herself, sweeping her legs at the Imperial's in an effort to knock him off balance. The impending reinforcements go ignored, the rage that burns in her eyes seeming to have taken hold of her. Rolling onto one side in a lame attempt to rise, Tokokga quickly realizes that isn't going to be happening anytime soon with the injuries to his limbs. Was one of his arms broken? He couldn't tell...there was pain everywhere, he couldn't tell anything anymore, it was just a blur of nauseating signals of injury. After being punished by his body with a sharp coughing fit, Tokoga resigns himself to propping his back against something in the middle of the room watching Myiari and Rainier fight, his mind and eyes still hazy from the earlier trauma. If Myiari could just overtake Rainier, maybe the two of them could find some way out of all this. They couldn't be _that_ far from civilization, wherever the Imperials had taken them... Time is on his side which perhaps explains why Rainier is rather leisurely about defending himself, or at least that he is not in a panic that things are not going according to plan. While his footing slips at Myiari's leg sweep, he rolls with the punches, so to speak, using the opportunity to roll away farther from the medic. And as he does this, the first of the guards appear, his rifle already raised, the Stormtrooper's weapon fired at Myiari just moments later. Thankfully, it was set to stun at the agent's insistence. <'ROLL'> Rainier rolls a 23 with 4D. An Excellent roll! <'SKILL'> Myiari rolls a 18 for her DODGE skill. A Good roll! Focused upon her target with the murderous intent not seen on even the most vicious of predators, Myiari fails to notice the Stormtroopers coming through the door. Just as she's about to lunge at Rainier again, the stun blast catches her square in the back, eliciting a sharp cry from the medic as the beam fells her, sending her crumpling onto the cell floor, unmoving. "Myiari!" Tokoga looks at Rainier with a positively searing gaze, following his movement around the room At least they hadn't killed her. No, of course not. They'd be saving that for when they ran out of things to threaten him with. That's not something the Senator's looking forward to. The whole thing was getting out of control, it truly was, what was supposed to be a nice and tidy interrogation became a brawl. Thankfully, it all came to a happy end for the interrogator, the man rescued by his Stormtroopers. And without delay, the two prisoners are strung up against the wall, shackles holding their limbs tight against the wall, although in the Mon Calamari's case, it just might be all that is keeping them up. Should the two still be unconscious after being strung up, the buckets of cold water upended on them. "Up.", cold, hard and certainly with no trace of lightness that characterized it in part even throughout the toughest of it. "I hoped to not come to this, not to be forced to truly be sadistic in this. You only had to answer, and barring that even if you had acted as proper prisoners, I could have justified not harming you too much." But now he can't, obviously, which explains why he suddenly strikes out with the baton he still wields at the Mon Calamari's legs, right leg to be more precise, and at the knee to be even more precise, intent on shattering it. Myiari reacts very little to the soaking, her head hung low over her chest and her body sagging against her bonds. Though her soft breathing makes it apparent that she's very much alive, her damp blonde hair covers her face like a thick curtain, making it difficult to determine whether or not she's conscious, or if she still suffers from the effects of the stun bolt she had previously taken. Though now more or less fully conscious, the Senator is in no position to put up any resistance to being shackled to the wall. Regarding Rainier hatefully as he speaks, tokoga's eyes squeeze shut in the middle of Rainier's strike it, and his body spasms slightly as the baton makes contact with his kneecap. An audible crack follows, testament to the shattering bone underneath Rainier's baton. Breathing in short, strained breaths and obviously in a great deal of pain, the Mon Calamari continues to keep silent while dripping blood down his leg from the new wound. Brek, meanwhile, stands among the rest of the Stormtroopers, indistinguishable in his white body armor. The E-11 blaster he carries is folded against his breastplate, and nothing about his face or his current temperament can be discerned. He is only silent, awaiting orders from Rainier, still as a statue. "Would that we could finish with this miserable pair.", Rainier says, his head cocked to the side so that he can look at the Stormtroopers, although in fact he addresses just one of them. "But Command will require that we show that we did all that was required to make them talk or at least rue the day that they decided to get violent. As it is, we might have to execute them, what do you think, is that called for?" Rainier notices at last that he does not have Myiari's attention, or at least that he does not have her gaze. A near-invisible button on the baton's handle is depressed, and blue bolts ripple through the opposite end of it, the electrified end jabbed into the medic's stomach. Again, Myiari reacts very little aside from a small whimper of pain, and she still refuses to raise her head. Though her face can't be seen, her overall demeanor seems to be indicative of defeat and complete apathy. Tokoga makes no protest to Rainier's actions, but the look in his eyes is more than enough to communicate his anger to the lieutenant. Still bleeding in more than a few more places, the Senator struggles defiantly against the bonds around his wrist--given his strength, of course, the action is only symbolic and doesn't budge the shackles from their connecting whatsoever. Brek steps forward, glancing from side to side at the Stormtroopers around him. None of them so much as turn their heads to support him, and with a small but undeniable flinch in his armored form, he straightens up, lowering his gun and glancing impassively over the two prisoners. "Sir," he begins, the hesitation in his voice mostly masked by his helmet synthesizer, "I don't believe execution is called for in this instance. With a New Republic Senator involved, the situation has the potential for reprisal on a large scale. I don't believe we, the Empire, want to set ourselves up for that sort of reaction. At least release the Senator." "Reaction on a large scale? We are at war with these people, how many of them have we slaughtered, how many of us have they sent to an early grave? The lieutenant next moves to grab the medic's hair, a fistful of it judged to be enough for jerking her head high enough to be able to look at all of the room, should her eyes be open. "At least? What is it that prompts you to want to argue for this woman's life, one would think that you above all would be calling for her head." And the Senator is not ignored and the baleful look directed at him certainly not missed, "Well then, Senator, your life for hers? You people salivate at the thought of high-minded sacrifice, so you must be willing to offer yourself for her, yes?" As a matter of fact, he would, but from more rational, less ego-centric reasons than the lieutenant seems to have in mind. "She's...young," Tokoga says with a weak nod, disregarding Myiari's protests. "More life to be had. But...I still don't think...mind games are your strong point." Rainier sighs, his cold smile, the one that just appeared after he last spoke, although in fact it is closer to a smirk as only one corner of his lips tugs upwards, slipping after Tokoga's last words. "You see, they goad me into harming them, what is it that they gain from that? And as for how I look, it is of no importance how the Rebels see me, and if I do make some 'most wanted' list of theirs, then clearly I am doing something right. And as for those under me, it is their duty to serve unquestionably even if asked to walk off a cliff. Or is it that your feelings for this murderer continues?" Tokoga's slight, of course, isn't ignored, and he whacks his baton straight into the man's left ribcage, although not with as much effort as his previous strike. The new strike draws a sharp exhalation from the Senator. Driven into a brief coughing fit by the force of the blow, he cringes in reflex against the direction of the pain as much as the bonds allow. Was it worth it? At this point, probably. "My feelings have very little to do with this, sir," Brek comments stiffly, the lilt of his words quite apparent even through the helmet's filter. "It is a stormtrooper's duty to die in the line of service. That their service led them to oppose this woman is hardly her fault, nor can she be blamed for defending herself. I have come to realize that. I don't forgive her for choosing to involve herself, though." The stormtrooper hesitates, the silent pause seeming to indicate an indrawn breath. "I was only offering my advice to you, sir, since you asked for it. I don't intend to argue my points. You will, of course, do as you see fit." The lieutenant's hand is raised until his weapon's end is level with the belt at his waist, and with a smooth motion he slides it into the loop that serves as a holding place for it, all this as he begins to walk away from the two prisoners. Halfway to the line of Stormtroopers, he pauses, a final look taken at the two prisoners before he turns back, this time walking towards the entrance, a motion of his hand summoning the troopers to follow after him. Once outside, the man turns to Brek, "Come with me trooper.", the other guards, two in truth, are left behind to tend to their duties. It is only some distance down the tight hallway that Rainier speaks up once more, "You do not approve of my methods? Speak freely." "I only want to serve the Empire as best I can, sir," the stormtrooper replies, lifting his hand in a salute to emphasize the claim. Letting it fall, gauntlet rattling against the white plastoid of his side armor, he continues. "Were I in your place, I would be handling the situation much differently, as I have said. I admit that perhaps my training and my experiences have biased me. Perhaps I am being too... soft. But they expect to die. As long as they expect that, sir, they're useless. The moment a man is certain of his death, there is nothing else you can do to him. No threat you can levy upon him that will make him respond. I know this from personal experience." "Have you ever been trapped on the surface of a hostile planet, sir?" Brek asks suddenly, the question seeming to even surprise him. "Surrounded by New Republic forces, your best friends shot so thoroughly that you can barely see the white in their armor for the blaster holes? Have you escaped from them by the skin of your teeth, motivated only by the certainly of death and the attempt to prolong it? Do you know what it's like, sir, to be the only survivor from a doomed squad? There was nothing you could have done to me then. It had already been done." "How old are you, Trooper?", Rainier asks, an odd question coming from a man with much more grey in his hair than his darker natural hair, no need to mention age and draw attention to his own. "As it is, we can't afford to dally, how many days has it been since we got these two, four, maybe five?" The man leads them up some stairs to the floor above where much of the work has been done, including their resident slicer's, not much help he has been, offices and Rainier private room slash planning area. But instead of heading there, he heads to the cramped kitchen, the rented building providing not much ammenities, but then opulence would draw unnecesssary attention. "I'm thirty-one, sir," Brek answers obediently, marching after Rainier. "I believe it's been four, sir," he adds, following along, his hands swinging loosely at his sides as he marches after the lieutenant. He says little more on the walk to the kitchen, only waiting for further prompting from his superior. "Take off your helmet, that mask is unsettling enough that I do not wish to see it everytime that we speak.", all this Rainier says as he digs through the food storage unit, rummaging inside of the container in search of something until he finds some bantha meat snack or other, or two of them as Brek is here, and while the foodstuff is tossed to Brek, pointing him to the heater, his own is eaten as is. "Thirty one, you've been in your fair share of battles, but you are still young. Tell me, have you ever been stabbed, or shot, or otherwise dealt extreme pain, either by accident or on purpose? What do you remember of whenthat happen, is there still some part of your mind that remembers those occasions when you were wounded in such a manner? And can you quantify those moments where it seems that there was only pain?" The helmet rises, and a moment later Brek's face comes into view, his hair twisted and frizzed from its extended durance within the recesses of the mask. He tucks it under his arm, glancing down to it for a moment and taking a moment to savor the unfiltered air, inhaling deeply as he musters words to reply to the lieutenant with. "Yes, sir. It takes time, but yes, sir. I've been shot, stabbed, bludgeoned, stood too close to a thermal detonator when it was going off, and on one occasion I managed to fall into a vat of acid." His expression, which had up until now been masked, is sour with the various recollections, an unaccustomed darkness coming to his eyes. The trooper lays the mask aside, throwing the snack Rainier provides onto the heater and dialing it up to an appropriate temperature. Watching the bland, brown lumps begin to sizzle, he remarks: "I've fought in the Corellian systems, sir. I was on the front lines for a lot of it. I have a lot of experience to draw on. A lot of time to think about the people that hurt me, and why they chose to. I have a more vivid memory than I would have ever wished for, sir." In short order, the snack is half-eaten, Rainier taken the briefest of pauses to chew although more often than not it isn't, beating people up is apparently draining work. "You spend too much time talking about inconsequential matters like who hurt you and why which shows that you haven't truly experienced pain in a sustained matter. It is one thing to have a broken finger, it is another to have one's fingers broken slowly and then the same to happen to every other bone that can be broken w hile keeping you alive before stimulating the pain receptors in your body. That is true pain." A final bite, and the snack's empty plastic package is thrown into a nearby bin, "Everyone has a breaking point, it might take minutes, hours, days, weeks, but everyone has it. That's the first thing you need to understand, the second thing you have to understand is that what seperates interrogators from street thugs is one's ability to break another quickly and still have them functional enough to do what you want or say what you want to hear. Those two fools in there think that death is the worse that they have to suffer, death is in fact a mercy that we try to deny others. If we had weeks, they would destroy the Republic and be happy to do it, but we don't have weeks. So what do you think ought to be done with what we have to work with Without the barrier of Brek's helmet in the way, his facial expressions provide a wealth of information about his reactions to his superior officer. First, undeniable disgust, shifting slowly into doubt, but by the end of the lieutenant's speech both of these things have been overriden by palpable fear. He reaches out, switching off the heater, and lifts the meat to his mouth, taking a bite and chewing on it slowly in order to delay his response to the man looking at him. The trooper seems about to argue, eyes narrowing, but instead the words that emerge from him are quite different: "We don't have the time to get what we need out of them, and killing them accomplishes nothing. There's nothing they know about us that would be useful to our enemies, sir. I see no reason not to simply let them go and leave as quickly as possible before we're discovered." "Should that occur, I would not survive it most likely,", no clue given as to whether he speaks literally or not, "And you might not as well, or if youa re considered low enough to get away with it, you can forget your attempts to get into the more elite units of the Stormtroopers given that most likely you'll be stuck in the worst assignements until you either desert, die or kill yourself. So, leaving them off the hook is not an option, you wanted to prove yourself didn't you, so prove yourself think of something better." The trooper turns away, pacing through the kitchen in a tight circle as he continues to gnaw at the meat. His teeth clench as he rips off a shred, masticating furiously. An idea seems to come to him just as he swallows, eyes fixing on Rainier again. "We could do that... as far as they're aware. But we could plant a bug on them. The Senator especially would make a good mark, we'd have access to Rebel data. That would satisfy command, wouldn't it?" Though excitement threatens to burst through beneath his otherwise level tone, his expression remains fully serious, his attention resting solely on Rainier. Thus finished, he takes another bite, seeming scarcely to notice the taste or the fact that he's eating. "Better.", Rainier says, no reaction shown to the shared idea beyond a mere nod, although perhaps he smiles at the stormtrooper's change in facial expression, it was a nice shift to see them as something other than stone given motion. "This way, we have the opportunity to save face, although what they expected when they told us to keep them here, I don't know, and we get something out of it. We'll make a scheming high-ranked officer out of you yet, trooper. Dismissed.", the rapprochement, if it could be called that, ended as soon as it began, the soldier sent away to deal with whatever else it is there is.